The Rail Gun

Powered by electricity, rail guns are electromagnetic projectile launchers that are able to fire several pound projectiles at hypersonic speeds.

Amazing But True

A rail gun is an apparatus that consists of two parallel guide rails that are connected to a power supply. When a conductive projectile is placed on the rails a magnetic field is created that is perpendicular to the rails. As a result, a Lorentz force is created that accelerates the projectile at a rate that is proportional to the current squared.

The Lorentz force states that a charged particle that moves in the presence of an electric or magnetic field will experience a force of the form:

where is the charge of the particle, is the particles velocity and and are the electric and magnetic fields respectively. For a railgun to be effective, the power supply that is used must be able to deliver constant and sustained currents while firing the projectile. All the materials used must be extremely strong to withstand the large amount of current and friction forces involved.

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